Aqueous developable photopolymerizable compositions are becoming of increased importance in the preparation of dry photoresist elements as well as in the preparation of photopolymerizable elements useful for printing, proofing, etc. Many of the photopolymerizable elements, in order to achieve high physical strength, utilize high molecular weight polymeric binders in their photopolymerizable compositions. It has been found that such elements may compromise speed of development. To increase the productivity of such elements would require excessively large processors. It is known that developers for aqueous developable photopolymerizable elements undergo loss of activity upon use and aging, as do developers from other arts, e.g., silver halide developers. To compensate for this loss of activity by photopolymer developers, various apparatus such as replenishment machines with their accompanying replenishment compositions have been devised. Replenishment machines are expensive and the operation of the machines increases the expense in that replenisher solutions must be purchased and the operator compensated for his time.
It is therefore desirable to prepare aqueous developable photopolymerizable elements which exhibit improved, i.e., quicker development, in standard developer solutions without affecting the physical properties of the dry photopolymerizable layer of the element, e.g., tensile strength, photopolymerization speed, adhesion to surfaces such as metal, e.g., copper; film, etc., and little or substantially no effect on the aqueous developers for the dry photopolymer layer.